


Everyone Deserves Good Things

by casophon



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Pre-Series, precious avocados, questionable browser histories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 20:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3908755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casophon/pseuds/casophon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt on the kink meme requesting college-era protective!Foggy.</p><p>Foggy is protective of his new roommate and tries to make life easier for Matt... preferably without making an ass of himself in the process. He mostly succeeds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In Foggy's own unbiased opinion, one of the best parts of himself is how willing he is to dive into everything head-first.

And sure, he might be cringing a bit at his own Google searches, and imagining someone, let alone Matt, seeing his search history makes the embarrassment almost physically painful. But he's already called his roommate a handsome duck, so how much worse can it get?

_how to guide blind person_  
 _how to explain things to blind person_  
 _tips for living with blind person_  
(--- and he scoffs at Google's insistence in suggesting the last word should be _dog_ instead.)

He finds tidbits such as, "Let the person with low vision know when you've entered a room. Do not walk away without letting them know you are leaving. Do not leave doors ajar and clear the floor and surfaces of clutter. Avoid rearranging furniture. Address people by name if in group conversation so the blind person is aware of if they are being spoken to or not."

He watches cheesy videos and looks at illustrated guides that look like they're done by the Family Circus guy on how to guide a blind person through narrow hallways and into chairs. He felt a little pang of sadness on reading a blog post about someone who was now afraid to cook for themselves. He laughs at the advice to not sing or clap when offering assistance and immediately starts thinking of how he could start working that into his daily life.

After a half-hour of reading, he feels prepared to make less of a fool of himself, which, really, what more can you ask for?

The first step is to clean, because while he isn't a slob and at least knew enough to keep the floor clear, knowing and doing are two different things. So he pushes his bed aside, cleaning up more junk than he'd ever expected to find underneath to make a space for his backpack, then gives the bed a good shove back into place. As long as he got in the habit he could make sure his backpack was never underfoot.

While he was at it, he might as well tidy up his desk. He tries not to think about Matt possibly reaching out for something to guide him to the door and feeling the sticky remains of what he is reasonably certain is just spilled pop.

Matt chooses that moment to come back from class and Foggy startles violently, knocking an empty can over in his rush to close the tabs on his computer. _Off to a good start on this whole not-looking-like-an-idiot thing, Foggy!_

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," Matt says with a slight grin.

"Oh, naw, naw, I was just. You know. Doing research." Matt is shaking his head in ever-so-slight exasperation as he drops off his bag because any millenial knows the sound of someone trying to hide what they were doing on the computer. And what is his life that he'd rather his roommate think he was looking up something questionable in broad daylight than -

"Ow!"

He turned around to see his bed, which he could have sworn he had put right back in its place, sitting a few inches off of the indents in the carpet, and Matt rubbing his foot, hissing a bit under his breath.

"You okay, man? I'm sorry, I was cleaning a bit and I must have moved it... Oh geez, I'm so sorry, I'm such a dick."

"It's fine, Foggy. I just stubbed it." And somehow the fact that Matt was always so nice about everything just made it worse.

"No, seriously, I'm a dick. Please call me a dick, it'll make me feel better."

"I'm not going to call you a -" and he breaks off with a little chuckle. "Seriously, it's not a big deal."

He's only barely gotten started and he's already failed his first self-imposed assignment. _Time to regroup._

\-------

Foggy wants to continue through the syllabus of GEN250: Living with the Blind, but after the failure of his first project he felt a bit lost on where to go next. Because, of course, this was one of those hipster write-your-own-plan kind of classes.

"Foggy, have you seen my umbrella?" Matt asks as he bursts through the door, running a hand through his hair and interrupting Foggy's train of thought.

"Umbrella? Oh shit, it's really comin' down, isn't it?" Matt nods ruefully, his shoulders and head slightly damp, clearly having hustled back from his previous class. Foggy had been too absorbed in, for a change, actually doing some research for his writing class to notice the change in weather. By research for class, of course, he actually meant about 10 minutes of honest research and a 30 minute break to look for blog posts about what it's like to go blind. He vaguely remembers tossing something umbrella-shaped somewhere during his ill-advised attempt to clean up last week. "You can borrow mine, I'll look for yours later, 'kay?"

Matt gives him a quick thanks and gracefully snatches the umbrella out of his hand as he rushes out of the room as fast as he had rushed in. Foggy chuckles to himself a bit imagining Matt clattering along at top speed across campus like a beacon with Foggy's florescent yellow umbrella. It doesn't take too long to dig up Matt's sombre black one from a sidelined pile of clutter, though he hopes he didn't misplace anything more important.

He looks back at his computer screen, considering what he had been reading earlier. _If you want to know what it's like and what you can do to help, why not just ask?,_ the blogger cajoled.

Even after the initial spark of connection they were still virtual strangers, having only known each other for one three-month quarter. Foggy loves getting to know people, and is more than willing to share uncomfortably personal information early on in a relationship but Matt is the polar opposite to Foggy's open book - a padlocked tome that gives out bits and pieces but never the key.

A fiercely independent, unexpectedly capable book - and this metaphor is falling apart already.

It's left Foggy uncharacteristically uncertain, wanting to do more but unwilling to jeopardize what trust he's built so far.

Luckily, an opportunity arises later that night, when he finally prods Matt into sharing the source of his occasional, quietly dramatic sighs.

"It's just - have you had Snyder for any classes?" Foggy shakes his head, and after a beat, adds a 'no.' "I've been asking for better versions of some handouts, his are all old and my OCR software makes a lot of mistakes when the scan isn't clean." Matt gestures fruitlessly at his computer, and Foggy skims over the open document, catching a few sections that looked like the text had gone through a meat grinder.

"And he hasn't fixed it?"

"He says he's getting to it. I don't think he really gets what the problem is." Matt's tone is mild, but the frustration was clear in the set of his jaw, his white-knuckle grip on the back of his chair.

If there's one thing Foggy knew well about Matt, it's that competent little tome that he is, nothing seems to get under his skin faster than being reminded of exactly what he can't do.

"Can I help? I could try to fix up the really messed up parts, at least until he gets his head out of his ass."

"No, you've got enough to do. I'll follow up with him. I just need to track down the university's rules on the subject, but I have to finish this assignment for tomorrow first. And don't you have that 15-page paper that you haven't even started?"

"I have a title page," Foggy objects weakly.

"Think you might need a little more than that. Like, 14 pages more than that."

He can tell by the way Matt has masterfully changed the subject that he totally called it and this 'asking' thing wasn't going to work.

"Fair point. But seriously, if I can do anything..."

"I'll let you know," Matt says, already popping his earbuds back in.

A few agonizing minutes of searching through their university's eminently unhelpful website and another few to dig up the appropriate law - because what good are law students if they don't haphazardly throw legal precedents at the wall until something sticks? - and drafts up a quick email along the lines of how copies of copies of copies probably don't fit under equal accessibility under the school's requirements and/or Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, so maybe administration should step in.

Before he sends it to Matt he sits back a moment and thinks on how little time that took him, and if the screen reader could handle the school's jazzy, animated front page menus or if it just took too much time to navigate for a grad student's schedule, and all the other things he's probably taking for granted but just can't think of.

"So I know you told me not to bother, buuuuut it seriously only took a few minutes... Here - " he punctuates his sentence with a flourished click of the mouse " - is what you need to sic the Disability Services people on him and get what you need because seriously, the guy needs a kick in the ass."

The ensuing silence is long enough as Matt listens to the email that Foggy begins to wonder if maybe he had crossed a line, assuming that Matt wouldn't be able to handle it himself, or maybe he's actually being too sensitive about helping and _that's_ the offensive part, or -

"Thank you," Matt says quietly, in a way that implied he didn't seem to really know how to handle being cared about, and Foggy really needs to quit with the bizarre protective urges for this grown-ass man. "This should really help."

"Don't worry about it! It's nothing."

"No, I- I appreciate it." A silence where Matt looks like he's about to say more - but settles back into his chair instead with the slightest shake of his head.

"Welp," Foggy says, cracking his fingers obnoxiously loudly, "14 more pages to go."

"Right." Matt clears his throat. "Good luck."

He doesn't really get this odd tension of things left unsaid but it settles quickly enough that he can brush it off and get back to work.

It never really occurred to him until later how Matt had taken the umbrella out of his hand like he knew exactly where it was.

He shrugged it off to dumb luck and wouldn't think of it again until several years later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: discussion of depression and suicidal ideation.

Foggy takes his studies seriously, of course, and house parties weren't as enticing as they were in undergrad, but he still makes sure to get out every other weekend or so; sometimes the best cure for the ever-present looming specter of student debt is a bit of loud music or/and booze.

Okay, mainly booze. A lot of booze.

This is beside the point.

Bluffing aside, he knows he's not a whole lot to look at - the long hair and beard often get him mistaken for either an engineering student or a hobo, or some combination thereof - but that isn't as important as it used to be, and Foggy enjoys the occasional female companionship in between all-nighter study sessions.

And then there's Matt, who is really, really, ridiculously, male-model good looking, but doesn't get out much (ever) and has not once brought anyone back to their room (lady-friend or friend-friend).

Granted, Foggy doesn't invite people to hang out in their room often, but for him it's a matter of common roommate decency. He has this feeling that for Matt, it's different.

He's not an idiot; he knows that inviting Matt out with him won't be some magical panacea to bring him out of his funk. It doesn't stop him from trying, but the knot of worry in his chest grows with as each attempt to reach out is neatly sidestepped with some carefully crafted excuse.

"Want to head over to Steve's tonight? He's been brewing his own beer in the spare bathroom, first batch is ready and waiting. He promised it would only kinda smell like bathtub."

"Nah, I should really focus on this assignment, I'm a bit behind. Tell 'em I said hi."

_Which one, the one you finished last week or the one you were printing out last night?_

\- or -

"I think I know a girl or ten into the whole tall-dark-and-handsome thing. C'mon, man, the 'loner dressed all in black' thing you've got going on is _so_ high school goth."

"After the thing with Rachel I'm not exactly in any hurry to meet someone new. You know how it is."

_Yeah, I know about 75% of your girlfriends are made up._

_Though that other 25% is still a lot of girls - okay, Foggy, can the jealousy._

\- or even -

"Matt, seriously, everything okay lately?"

"I'm a bit sleep deprived, maybe, but who around here isn't?"

_That has got to be the saddest, most lopsided attempt at a smile I have ever seen. Do you, like, know that other people can see your face?_

And let's not mention the time he finally asked Matt to talk to someone professional.

He can't really be mad, even if all the little lies get under his skin because what, doesn't Matt trust him to be there for him?

Okay, that's unfair. Take a step back.

Matt is depressed. Matt is totally the most depressed person he has ever known, is screwed up in ways Foggy didn't even know people could be screwed up, and it would almost be funny if this weren't actually the complete opposite. His mood goes up and down like the tides, this Foggy already knew. The problem was that it felt like the tide was taking its dear sweet time coming back in this time around.

He tries to think back to that psych class he took in freshman year. Along with the typical curriculum the professor, hippy-dippy little thing that she was, had them practice role playing the issues they had covered in class. And it was kinda stupid, yeah, but he remembers clearly how his heart pounded and how hard it was to just practice saying, "Are you thinking about committing suicide?"

And then his partner had wondered at what it might take to pull off suicide-by-Iron Man and the professor swooped on their giggles with her shawl fluttering like a large, bejewelled hawk.

The thought strikes him that he might need to ask that question for real to his best friend and the bile rises in his throat. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm the sudden flutter of his heart. Behind him, Matt's shitty desk chair squeaks as he shifts his weight.

It was one thing to research how to live with a blind roommate - the results of which had been hit or miss anyway. He'd even held out his elbow to guide Matt for the first time... and then left it sticking out as they walked like a Southern gentleman leading his country belle around by her delicate, gloved hand. The fit of giggles that description elicited was well worth the embarrassment.

It's another thing entirely when it came to something as not-to-be-fucked-around-with like this. The next thing he'll be looking up for this assignment is the contact information for the on-campus counseling center. All of the tips he'd read so far on "how to help a depressed friend" had felt so laughably trite or insincere and he couldn't help the vague fear that he wouldn't be able to help if something really did snap. He shoots off his unusual request ("counsel me on counseling my stubborn-ass friend 'cause he won't go in to see you", only in not so many words) and frowns at the 1-2 week waiting list.

It's dark in the room when he comes back from a late night study session a few days later, which isn't unusual - part 'blind guy doesn't need lights' and part 'blind guy does occasionally leave his cave to feed' - but the small sniffle coming from a lump near Matt's bed definitely is.

"Hey, hey, hey, buddy, what's wrong?" Foggy asks, voice pitched quiet, crouching down in front of the bundled-up pile of long limbs. Matt's legs were drawn up against his chest, propping up his arms to let his hands fall against his ears.

Remembering something about hearing and other senses becoming more sensitive after losing sight, Foggy feels a pang of sympathy in his chest. He cranes his ears a bit and wonders, not for the first time, what his friend actually perceived. To him, the building was quiet besides a soft thump-thump of music down the hall.

His hands hover indecisively around Matt's head before falling back to his side, ineffective. Matt doesn't say anything, but his posture loosens infinitesimally.

"Can - can I, uh - " and now his fingers brush over Matt's hesitantly, afraid of spooking him, then settle on the line of the dark glasses still catching moonlight from the window. Matt bows his head ever so slightly in permission, so Foggy sucks in a breath and tries to take the frames off without incident. Naturally, he nearly jabs Matt in the eye with one of the ends, but laughing now seems wrong, so he folds them and sets them respectfully on the bedside table.

Matt cants his chin up, rubbing the wetness from his glazed eyes before letting them rest somewhere in the space between them.

"Talk to me." Inhale. Is this the time to ask? Is he way off the mark? Better to ask and be wrong than never ask at all - "Are you th-"

"I can't... always focus. Tune it out. It was just... overwhelming, for a moment."

"Tune what out, Matty?" But he had already schooled his face back into that impassive mask and shut Foggy out again, shaking his head.

"Sorry if I worried you, Foggy. It was just loud and I-I couldn't - hey!"

If Matt wouldn't talk about what kept that quiver in his voice, there was one last resort Foggy knew of - a good ol' fashioned Nelson clan hug. He pulled Matt to his chest, letting his friend rest an ear against him. Matt held his hands against Foggy's arms, not yet pushing away, but not yet relaxing, either.

"What are you doing?" he asked, muffled.

"Hugging you, what does it feel like?"

And Foggy had only said that because hell, even he couldn't see what it looked like in this darkness, even if he was supposed to use "seeing" verbs or whatever shitty advice he'd already thrown out, but Matt seemed to take it at face value and stilled for a moment, considering, before going almost entirely limp.

"Okay, c'mere." A bit of shuffling around put them in a slightly less awkward position, both now leaning against the bedframe, though Matt does his best to keep his ear glued to Foggy's chest through the entire process. "There we go."

He wants to get it, he does, but he just can't wrap his head around what's happening. Clearly, he's doing something right, but he has no idea why or what, exactly, is right about this. And it's a little weird, especially when he starts petting Matt's hair, but it's what his mom used to do for him, and for now, he could deal with weird; weird is far better than any other imaginable alternative.

"I'm here for you, buddy. Whatever you need."

"... thanks."

For now, it would have to be enough.

\----

Ever since that night, things have been different. Not as awkward as he had been afraid of, but different. Matt seems to be coming out of his head more often, smiling a bit easier, and if he is still clearly in a funk, well, one step at a time.

And then there's the whole thing where they end up sitting side-by-side in Matt's bed - god his sheets are nice - after a night out drinking, which is another change, and totally new.

"I think it freaks people out. The lack of eye contact," Matt admits. Foggy wracks his brain for the lost thread of conversation and finally remembers asking about the ever-present glasses roughly forever ago, or just before the last short period of silence, either one.

"Well, fuck those people. I like your face, and your eyes. They're like the opposite of freaky."

"You really need to work on your pickup lines."

"I do just fine for myself, thank you very much!"

Rather than continue their usual rhythm of give-and-take, Matt falls silent, rolling an empty bottle between his palms in contemplation. This is Matt-ese for _'I want to say something but will probably wimp out'_ so Foggy gives him a nudge. "What's up?"

"What do I look like?"

"Like a drunk law student who is just hitting the part where he regrets every decision that took him to this point?"

"No," Matt says around one of his little drunk-giggles, "seriously, I've never really asked anyone before. I mean, I trust you to be honest. What do I look like?"

And sure, Foggy's not entirely certain how he feels about this, but it gets Matt to set aside his bottle and take off his impenetrable glasses, and he's looking so earnestly at a point about two feet to Foggy's right, so he can't say no.

"Welp, let's see, dark hair, dark eyes - big, dark eyes with long lashes, so yeah, basically cow eyes -" Matt manages to choke on nothing.

" _Cow eyes_ ," he repeats incredulously. "What does that even mean."

"It means girls glue shit to their eyes to get that look, you should be thrilled. Yeah, and, uh, action-hero stubble, like you just need to stuff some watermelons in your biceps to get that manly bulk and you're set." Not that he'd noticed that Matt is half-way to the muscle part, too; he's bizarrely built for an underfed grad student.

The drunk-giggles morphed into outright laughter and Foggy couldn't help but laugh along with until Matt calms down enough to ask, "And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"What do you look like? No -" Matt cuts him off before he can even begin to brag "- wait, after that I don't think I trust you to be honest anymore." He's close, now, enough that Foggy can see the flick of a tongue as Matt wet his lips and smell the hops on his breath. "Can I...?"

It takes him a moment to register what Matt is asking.

"You want to do that touch-seeing you people do?"

"You people? That sounds like discriminatory language, Mr. Nelson."

"Yeah, well," but whatever smart-ass comeback he has dies in the sudden dryness of his mouth. He hopes Matt isn't so close he can hear the sudden fluttering of his heart.

It started along his hairline. He smoothed over Foggy's eyebrows with his thumbs, letting the other fingers drift along his temple. The pads dragged across his eyes and down the ridge of his nose before spreading out along his cheeks. And yeah, he's a little self-conscious about his double chin but Matt doesn't seem to care, drawing his fingers back together at Foggy's throat and trailing them back up to fan out across his mouth, one fingertip catching his lower lip and pulling it down ever so slightly as Matt pulled away.

"Thanks," Matt says after a pregnant pause.

"Was it good for you?" Foggy asks huskily. "I'm wagging my eyebrows at you, by the way."

"I can almost see it now."

Foggy likes to think of himself as a good friend and game for whatever he can do to help, but yeah, that would be yet another entry in the chapter of his life titled "Being Friends With Matt Murdock is Really Freaking Weird". He tries to tell himself the heat in his face is due to the beers, the awkwardness, the laughing fit. "Well, that was refreshingly heterosexual," he says once they finally calm down, setting them off again.

"But seriously. I've said it before, but I appreciate that you treat me like 'just a guy.' That we can joke about these kinds of things. With a lot of people, they're either patronizing, afraid of offending, or feel like they can ask personal questions." Matt toys with the arms of his glasses. "Someone actually asked me once how I watch porn."

Foggy digests this for a moment. "... So, how _do_ you -"

He totally deserved that jab in the ribs.

What he doesn't say is that Matt's not _just_ a guy. He's Foggy's best friend. He's really goddamn smart and will make a great lawyer some day. He's been dealt a shit hand in life - and Foggy suspects he doesn't even know the half of it yet - but is still so fucking good it makes Foggy want to not only be better, but try to make things better for Matt, too. Maybe some day Matt will be in a place that he can hear that he deserves someone who cares about him (and sticks around, unlike his revolving door of girls).

Until then, he'll keep the floor clean, steer Matt around puddles, be a shoulder to lean drunkenly against. It may not solve all his problems, but it doesn't have to. Everyone deserves good things in their lives, and Matt has a lot of catching up to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Original post: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/725.html?thread=566229#cmt566229
> 
> I have not written fic in about 5 years. Of all things, it was Marvel that finally dragged me back in. *shakes fist*
> 
> (Just kidding, I missed it.)


End file.
